More and more people in north Indian states are going for small families, preferably without daughters, leading to further deterioration of the already skewed sex ratio.
NEW DELHI: More and more people in north Indian states are going for small families, preferably without daughters, leading to further deterioration of the already skewed sex ratio, says a new study.
Though traditional methods of doing away with girl child -- infanticide, poor post-natal care and use of potions to engineer abortions are still being used, there is a conscious shift towards modern technologies of sex determination and sex selection, according to the survey of sex ratio of 0-6 years in five districts of north and north-west India.
The study by an advisory team of NGO Actionaid, in collaboration with Canada-based funding agency International Development Research Centre, found that overall sex ratio in survey sites -- Fatehgarh Sahib (Punjab), Rohtak (Haryana), Kangra (Himachal Pradesh), Dhaulpur (Rajasthan) and Morena (Madhya Pradesh) -- is worse than it was during 2001 census.
More couples -- across the rural-urban divide -- are now taking a conscious decision to keep their family size smaller, the researchers found.
"People are now planning for families with sons and preferably without daughters," the report said.
In certain social groups, more than one son is less and less welcome, to prevent property division and high investment in education. "This trend is being observed in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.
The emerging one-son family norm is leading to increased sex-detection of the first child," Jyoti, a research assistant with Actionaid, said.
The researchers found that sex selection clinics have mushroomed dramatically, yet arrests of medical practitioners involved have been very few. No active efforts have been made to stem such efforts or investigate the culprits.
Despite knowledge of sex determination being a crime and the high costs involved, couples are continuing to resort to it and justifying abortion.
"Till a child is not born, killing 'it' is not a murder. Now everyone gets a son by abortion only," a male respondent from Himachal Pradesh has been quoted as saying, while a woman from the same state said she had eight consecutive abortions after a daughter till she had a son.
The study suggested re-evaluating government family planning programmes in light of persisting gender inequalities and said increased state intervention is necessary to regulate pre-natal technologies and prevent import of newer at-home sex determination technologies.
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